With my cup of coffee in hand I was, as usual, starting to doom scroll on my phone when I suddenly saw one too many horrible headlines, and said, “Enough!!” For now anyway. Life has got to be better than this.
Then the YouTube algorithm got me tuned into video channels playing hits from the Sixties and early Seventies. One after another — Booker T and the MGs, Tony Orlando and Dawn, ABBA, The Grass Roots, Donovan, The Beach Boys — my mood instantly lifted and I was tapping my foot and feeling GOOD! Life’s too short not to have these happy musical awakenings and soulful, upbeat moods, listening to music that will never die.
What got this started was a YouTube video compilation with commentary about each song. The video was titled “Top Ten Songs from the Sixties That Still Make You Smile.” Perfect. I liked the selection, but decided to look for some of my own personal favorites. At age 74, not one of the songs below has lost its edge and pop brilliance, its magic as I listen and relive the memories the songs conjure up..
From the introduction, “There’s a time when music carried an innocent glow, when choruses were so sweet it felt impossible to be sad”. Yes, that’s exactly it — 60 years later.
And, it’s always fun to read the comments from aging Baby Boomers like myself and relate to every word, such as this: “Thank goodness I was a teenager in the Sixties. It was the best decade of music…”
A sampling of some immortal songs:
I Have a Dream — ABBA
Good Vibrations — The Beach Boys
Time is Tight Booker T
Let’s Live for Today — The Grass Roots
Ride Captain Ride — Blues Image
Spirit in the Sky — Norman Greenbaum
City of New Orleans — Arlo Guthrie
Pushin Too Hard — The Seeds
The Happy Organ — Save “Baby” Cortez
Pipeline — The Chantays
Walk Don’t Run — The Ventures
Apache — The Shadows
Back is Black — Los Bravos
You’ll Never Walk Alone — Gerry and the Pacemakers
Loading comments...